The Molve 42 gas rig started operating on Sunday morning and it currently produces 120,000 cubic metres of gas daily.
This is the 20th rig in the northern Molve gas field, the largest gas field in Croatia. Two more rigs will be put into operation there this year.
Molve produces around three million cubic metres of gas daily, and its annual production amounts to some 670 million cubic metres.
This is more than one-third of the overall gas production, which last year amounted to 1.8 billion cubic metres.
Natural gas in Croatia is used by some 470,000 consumers, and the annual consumption is around 2.8 billion cubic metres, with domestic production covering 60 percent of the market demand, and imports from Russia the remaining 40 percent.
Gas imports from Russia stabilised last week and now amount to some 130,000 cubic metres per hour.